The Long Winter



The Long Winter refers to a recent mini-ice age triggered by the events of The global catastrophe known as The Fall. Although many individual events of The Fall contributed, The Long Winter was officially triggered by events at The Great Dam on Hudson Lake.

A great sheet of ice was melting in North America. Warmed by minor climate change triggered by war and economic policies, The Hudson Lake was growing larger at an alarming pace. The World's leaders quickly realized that such a massive dose of fresh water could not be allowed to breach into the Atlantic Ocean.

In one of the last ditch efforts of Man to tame The Earth, a few nations banded together to create a massive dam on the West side of The Hudson Lake. This dam

It was triggered by an ice dam in the Hudson Lake building up, and then breaking, dumping quadrillions of liters of icy fresh water into the Atlantic Ocean, cooling all of the Earth very rapidly.

Possible Sequence of Events

 * 1) Global War damages the environment (somehow?)
 * 2) Global warming spikes
 * 3) Flora and Fauna begin to die off
 * 4) Humans In peril
 * 5) Canadian & Greenland Ice melt
 * 6) Humans attempt to build a massive Earth-dam.
 * 7) The dam is sabotaged, dumping massive amounts of icy water into the atlantic.
 * 8) Thermohaline circulation is disrupted.
 * 9) The ocean cools
 * 10) Ice age - 12,000 years.

Immediate Disaster
In the decades following the sabotage of the Great Hudson Dam, the world saw rapid climate change and extinction of many species. First, the most sensetive creatures in the ocean began to die off. After that, more hardy forms began to wane. Global temperatures were on the cool side for many years. Crops flourished less and less by the year. Amidst all this, the fighting escalated.

Impact on Humanity
Immediate impacts were widespread crop and food shortages, civil unrest, global military conflict, mass starvation, disease, massive unimployment, and the complete breakdown of all known civil, political, religious, and social mechanisms. The few humans that survived did so under the most grim conditions ever.

Immediately after the collapse (50 - 100 years), people mostly huddled in small tribal groups, fearful of bandits, poisonous waste, and each other. Much territory had changed - and there was less of it to go around.

Wool Gathering

 * Big Freeze Triggered by Flood Path
 * More about Thermohaline Circulation
 * Thermohaline disruption a threat to blue whales (and others?)
 * Hunter/Gatherer Technology
 * Global warming makes MPLS the new awesome spot
 * Russian Hermit Family lives isolated in Siberia